Aluminum is a chemical element also known by the name Aluminium. It is the most abundant element in the Earths crust. Aluminum and its alloys are strong but light metals. It also has a self protecting oxide coating which secures it from corrosion, and is a good heat and electrical conductor. It is used as cans, foils and kitchen utensils, parts of planes, rockets, and in high voltage electrical transmission and power lines.

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Properties

Aluminum is a silvery and quite pliable poor metal(post-transition metals), its also soft(unless its alloyed) and very lightweight. [1] Aluminum has a self protecting oxide coating which secures itself from corrosion and is also a good heat and electrical conductor. [2] Aluminum has a density of 2.7 g/mL, because it sinks even though it is lightweight. [3] Aluminum is not strong, unless it is alloyed with other metals like copper or magnesium. [4]

Corrosion resistance is excellent because of a thin surface layer of aluminum oxide which forms when the metal is exposed to air. Aluminum retains full silvery reflectance in a finely powdered form; because of this they use it in silver paints. In addition to being a good thermal and electrical conductor, it is also able to be a superconductor with a superconducting critical temperature of 1.2 Kelvin.[5]

History

The metal originally got its name from the Latin alumen. In 1761, the name of alumina was offered as the name for the base in alum by L. B. G. de Moreveau, this was later found out to be the oxide of a yet to be discovered metal. In 1807, Sir Humphrey Davy proposed that they should name the yet to be discovered metal aluminum. This name was then altered to aluminium so that most of the elements would have “ium” ending. This version of the name was used throughout the world until 1925, when the American Chemical Society changed the spelling back to the original spelling of aluminum. Even though they new of the existence of aluminum it would many, many years for people to for people to find a way to get the metal out from its ore and how to use it commercially. [1]

Crude aluminum was isolated In 1825 Hans Christian Ørsted isolated crude aluminum; he did this by reducing aluminum chloride with potassium amalgam. In 1809, Sir Humphry Davy prepared an iron-aluminum alloy by electrolyzing fused aluminum oxide. Friedrich Wöhler a German chemist used potassium metal as a reducing agent produced aluminum powder in 1827, and small globules of the metal in 1845, by doing this he was able to determine some of aluminum's properties.[2]

Karl Joseph Bayer

Throughout most of the 19th century Aluminum was considered more precious than silver and gold, because of its complication of refining it from the ore. The first president of the french republic Napoleon III when hosted a dinner he ate from Aluminum plates while guests and Ranked men ate from gold and silver plates. In 1886 Hall and Herout developed an inexpensive electrolysis process by which aluminum can be extracted from aluminum oxide. In 1887 Karl Josef Bayer developed a chemical process by which alumina can be extracted from bauxite. Today both hall-Herouts and Bayers processes are used throughout the whole world to make aluminum. Many Businessmen and industrialists quickly realized the use of aluminum in the 1900s. The first aluminum association meeting was in new york city on 1935.[6] The name aluminum comes from alumen, the Latin name alum. [7]

Occurrences

Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element in the Earth's crust, but it is rare in its free form, only occurring in oxygen-deficient environments such as volcanic mud. Aluminum is a reactive metal that is difficult to extract from ore. Aluminum oxide is extracted by electrolysis; which is when the aluminum oxide is dissolved in molten cryolite and then reduced to the pure metal. Cryolite is a mixture of aluminum, sodium, and calcium fluorides. The aluminum oxide which is a white powder is obtained by refining bauxite in the Bayer process.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag Aluminum is applied everywhere, as it is in indoor, as well as in outdoor. Even sports like golf and tennis use Aluminum. Aluminum is used particularly in many buildings, pipes, tubing, sheets, wiring, bars, casting, scraps, stampings, rods, doors and gutters. Aluminum can be mixed with other elements to create a new look and strength, it's also very flexible, easy to reform it. Aluminum is mostly preferred to be used as a packaging, especially when in containment of food, since it keeps the food clean from harmful elements in the environment. [8] Aluminum sometimes can be replaced by copper in transformers. Because of its adaptability and other properties its used in casing, mountings, and other parts of equipment used in communications and electronics, as well as office equipments, fuse boxes, satellite dishes, household appliance, television sets and sound systems. [9] In the year 2011 companies as United Co. Rusal, Rio Tinto Group, and Alcoa Inc produce most of the worlds Aluminum averaging about 4,000 tons of Aluminum per year. [10]